6/02/2010 @ 9:50AM

Financial Rules For Later-In-Life Stepparents

Question: My wife Janet and I recently invited my children and their families, plus Janet’s son Matt and his family, to join us for a 10-day vacation at a Caribbean resort. I’ll be picking up the tab for everything at the resort, as well as flying everyone except Matt’s family down on my jet (there’s no room for them). Because they’re not flying with us, Matt apparently feels he and his family are being treated like second-class citizens.

This has Janet worrying that maybe I should pay for their four airline tickets–something Matt can well afford–and promise that next time my kids will “take their turn” flying commercial. I’m flabbergasted. Janet and I have been married for less than a year, and I’ve met her 37-year-old son three or four times. Am I missing something here?

Answer: If Matt decides he’s too wounded to accept your invitation, let us know. We’d be delighted to fly down to the Caribbean and vacation at your expense.

Seriously, 10 all-expenses-paid days at a nice resort for a family of four is a very generous gift–a gift for which Matt should feel appreciative, not resentful. The fact that it’s not identical to the gift you’re giving to your own children is irrelevant. It’s not unusual–and certainly not wrong–for hosts to expect their guests to make their own travel arrangements. And you are Matt’s host, not his Dad.

Matt should realize that when someone his age gets a new stepparent, the “parent” part of the designation is by courtesy only. What this means is that you and Matt owe each other respect and civility. But anything more, including guaranteed seating on your jet, is strictly optional–optional unless the two of you become close, or unless you and Janet together decide differently.

Just to be clear, if Matt were a child, your obligations would be different. Then the “parent” part of stepparent would mean a lot more. Things would be different as well were Matt looking to you for help with, say, medical bills he couldn’t afford rather than with a vacation expense he can. Finally, it would be different if covering the cost of those plane tickets were a hardship for Matt. Then inviting him to the Caribbean wouldn’t be offering him a treat; it would be dangling a gift in front of him that he couldn’t afford to accept.

Do you think stepparents have a financial responsibility to the grown children of their new spouse? Share your thoughts in the Reader Comments section.

As is, you’re right to feel flabbergasted. Your new stepson has everything backwards. Instead of griping about having to pay the plane fare for an otherwise free vacation that has to be worth 10 grand, Matt ought to be happy his mother has married someone who not only is unlikely to be a financial burden on her, but who wants to entertain him royally to boot.

Naturally, you want to have a good relationship with Matt, not to mention with Janet. So our advice is, hold your ground–nicely, of course. Giving in to Matt’s unreasonable expectations now would only encourage him to feel a greater sense of entitlement in the future. Then what? He’s upset to discover that you’re leaving more money to your own children than you are to him?

Note: Names and identifying details of people discussed in this column have been changed to preserve their privacy.

Jeanne Fleming, Ph.D., and Leonard Schwarz write about the intersection of money, ethics and personal relationships. They are authors of Isn’t It Their Turn to Pick Up the Check? Dealing with all of the Trickiest Money Problems between Family and Friends–from Serial Borrowers to Serious Cheapskates (Free Press, 2008). Questions? E-mail them at FlemingandSchwarz@MoneyandEthics.net.